"for everyone who has seen their life in ruins, and found the courage to dream regardless of it"

Tag Archives: fear

…or the 4th…who cares? After the first ones it gets a little confusing which was which.

Anyway. When I started this blog I wasn’t sure that I would write about each one here at all. But now, it’s time to tell the story about one more of them.

Writing about my issues with rape was enough, since it got me to getting back to my actual life and feeling better. Lately however, I have been going to regular jazz ballet classes. Dance has become some sort of a tool in recovery too, as well as a new home. It has constant challenges and it has let me grow in many ways during the 2 months that I’ve been going there. However, part of those challenges are that there are a lot of triggers.Some of them are small and I disregard; some of them are bigger, and it takes me days to shake off the feeling they leave and get back to the next dance class.

Two of those happened yesterday, and I will write about them separately. However, they brought some memories in my head, and unlike usually, I haven’t been able to shake them out yet.

So I decided to tell this one here.

*

My rapist was a guy in the house I was living for the summer. I was working in another country and was living in a house with a lot of other people doing the same, for about 4 months. This particular guy was always friendly, always flirting and saying that he isn’t, and always complaining about something I was doing. I’ve told about the first time he assaulted me before, as well as the second, so I won’t repeat myself.

After that point there were few more times. Each was different. I’d like to tell you that I was smarter and managed to protect myself better after the first times, but I wasn’t. I was in another country, without a job, and thinking if I’ll have food the next day. Dealing with something like a rape had no place in that. The brain protects us in strange ways. In mine, it was full or partial denial of what was happening, along with all kinds of excuses in my head about the physical evidence of it all.

And so that night came.

The first time had been in another room, and the second had been in my room. Despite my avoidance of the subject, the second time left me subconsciously very weary and afraid.

I resented the guy every time I saw him, and resented myself for not being able to tell why I feel like this about him. I avoided the parties he made with the other people in the house and they started looking at me like I was an outsider. He came to my door once each night, finding a reason to knock and talk to me- just talk. Sometimes he invited me to things, for which I always refused, sometimes he came to ask for a favor or bring something.

I awaited his coming to my room, and from the moment the day went towards evening, if I happened to be in my room, I was weary, jumpy, unable to concentrate on anything, waiting for the knock.I couldn’t admit to myself why I was scared. Despite my reservations with guys, in my previous world, such things like rape only happened in movies. I was still reluctant to call what happened to me rape (took me another year to really realize what it was). Each time he finally ended his talking at my door and went back to his party, I felt my knees weak and sat on the bed for a long time, staring in space. Those days, no matter how tired I got, or whether I slept for 2 hours only, I always re-checked if I locked the door, few times, just to be sure. Sometimes I checked it few times each hour during the evening before going to bed. For no reason at all.

I start panicking, my heart racing. I look at her, unable to say yes or no. In my head, I don’t see the other students around me attempting to fall without hurting themselves. I feel hands holding mine and pushing me; I feel me falling down, rather like a sack of something and not like a human, and hitting something hard through the fog surrounding my brain. Continue reading →

“Right now, you aren’t making difference between fantasy and reality.” I look at the counselor, not so convinced.

The reality of what happened, it’s engraved in my memory, in every scar on my skin, in every night I wake from nightmares. What does she know?

*

That was 2 years ago, when I went to a counselor, to get help so that I wouldn’t want to drink all the time anymore. It helped, even though I never told her that the main reason that I want to drink is the broken memories I had of my rape, and trying to move on as if it never happened.

*

People are learned constantly that we need roots. Familiar things. That in a hard situation you have to try to contain your life in normal routine. When we get into a situation which is hard but we have no control over, we hold onto what we know, until the storm passes.

For 2 years, before I was ready to talk about my rape, I avoided anything around the word rape, as if my mind would explode at the slightest idea of it. So I didn’t much get to think about why I didn’t report it- and I didn’t get questioned about it, since I didn’t tell anyone the truth about what had happened.

From the people I chose to share that with in the past months, I got that questioned few times, and carefully, creatively, talked around it. Answered it without really answering it. Not because I didn’t want to answer, but because I didn’t know the answer even for myself yet.

For weeks now, I journaled less and less and blogged less and less- the more things I was getting back in my life, the less I thought about my recovery. And every once in a while, it came back to bite me- being sad on a day where everything was going perfectly okay, being overly emotional, not sleeping well again, having nightmares. A lot less severe than 6 months ago, but they still prevented me from getting rest. I knew I have more work to do to fully recover, but I was so glad to be feeling good again, that I postponed it over and over.

But it’s time. So here I am. I started reading about rape and recovery again, and the topic just popped at me, so I think I’m ready to answer now.

Post navigation

QUOTES from a random post:

" So, I watched TV series instead. Because they were convenient, and colorful, and different, and because they covered that faceless, bottomless emptiness left after that guy had taken all he wanted from my body, and after I had thrown away all that he left of my soul."
---"Coping Mechanisms: TV addictions and Other Disasters", The Road to Recovery